Conventional air conditioning systems, often referred to as heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for residential dwellings and other installations typically utilize one thermostat for controlling the temperature in the entire controlled space. For example, in a residential dwelling the thermostat is normally located centrally, such as in an interior hallway. However, various rooms throughout the dwelling, such as the kitchen, upstairs bedrooms in two-story homes, or rooms in which a more appreciable heating or cooling load is occurring may not be properly controlled to produce a comfortable temperature for the occupants.
It is desirable to be able to determine the temperature in various locations within a residential dwelling or other enclosed space which may be divided into several zones or rooms and conditioned by a single air conditioning unit. Still further, it has been deemed desirable to be able to control the temperature at a particular area or in a particular room in a controlled interior space and to control the HVAC system to provide an average temperature based on sensing temperatures at several locations within the controlled space, such as various rooms within a residential dwelling unit.
Another problem associated with thermostats which are programmable to change the temperature setting at various times of the day relates to changing from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time and resetting the thermostat to operate from and to show the correct time setting on a visual display of the thermostat.
It is to overcome the disadvantages of prior art systems and to meet the desiderata mentioned above and otherwise herein that the present invention has been developed.